The present invention relates to a photosensitive material (to be also referred to as a "sensitive material" hereinafter) having raw stock stability and latent image stability improved by adding a specific novel organic compound without degrading the color generation properties.
Silver halide photosensitive materials are required to have high sensitivity and minimize variations in the photographic property depending on a storage period after the manufacture of the materials and before the materials are used in photographing and variations in the photographic property depending on a storage period from the time of photographing with the material to the time when the materials are developed. Note that the former property is called the raw stock stability of sensitive material and the latter property is called the latent image stability of sensitive material.
Also, full-color sensitive materials achieve full-color photographing by using a multi-layered arrangement including a plurality of emulsions different in spectral sensitivity. A full-color sensitive material is coated with a plurality of emulsions having different properties, and these emulsions are also different in raw stock stability and latent image stability. So, a technique which allows only a specific layer to achieve its effect is being strongly desired.
As a means for improving the raw stock stability and latent image stability of a photosensitive material and allowing only a specific sensitive layer to achieve its effect, a method of adding a hydroxamic acid derivative to a sensitive material is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. (hereafter referred to as JP-A-)8-314051 whose corresponding EP application is EP 750,225A. The present inventors evaluated the improving effect of compounds described in JP-A-8-314051 and found that the compounds were effective even under high-temperature, high-humidity conditions. However, these compounds did not show any specific improving effect under forced conditions at high oxygen partial pressure.
JP-A-9-61976, whose corresponding U.S. Patent is U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,959, has disclosed a method which reduces the residual amount of sensitizing dyes after development by adding a hydroxamic acid derivative to a sensitive material. The present inventors similarly evaluated the raw stock stability and latent image stability of compounds described in JP-A-9-61976 and found that these compounds were also not satisfactorily effective under forced conditions at high oxygen partial pressure. Additionally, it was found that the addition of these compounds to a sensitive material had an adverse effect on the color generation properties of couplers.